Author: vrendes

Messy Pages and Plot Twists: Journaling, Cinema and the Creative Spark

A couple of years ago, I revisited the Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way. I have kept journals on and off for the past 30 years and certainly consistently over the past 8-10 years. As Julia suggests, I write 3 pages each day, but I rarely get to do this in the morning. My pages are completed as part of my evening routine.

There is nothing earth shattering within the hundreds of pages I have written. They are mainly trivial recollections of the day with the occasional piece of insight. No historian will ever want to read it. I miss most of the important things that have happened on the world stage. Instead, I concentrate on the minutia of my life. Still, I keep writing and find it a comforting daily exercise.

While I write my blogs on the computer, my journals are all handwritten. I use a fountain pen because I love the feel of the nib as it glides across the paper. My writing is both messy and ‘ample’ as someone once said. I prefer a medium nib that lets the ink flow like my words tumbling out onto the paper. Sometimes I get the first part of a word on paper and part of the next. My hand can’t keep up with my thoughts. But that’s OK too. Nobody will read this, not even me. I have boxes of journals under the stairs which would make good kindling for my funeral pyre.

But writing the three or so pages daily is only part of Julia Cameron’s routine. Another practice she advocates is the artist date. She points out that this is one of the hardest to keep. We create all sorts of reasons why we can’t make time for ourselves. I had forgotten about this until last week. I realized that I had not been out anywhere for weeks, except the shops and my customary dog walk. Something had to change.

On a hot day there’s nothing better than escaping to the airconditioned comfort of a cinema. My favourite place is the Palace Electric in Acton which also hosts various film festivals. There were several films to choose from. I decided on ‘Conclave’ which was a drama centred on the election of a new pope. I was surprised as to how many people were in the audience. I presumed it would only be Catholics or those who had an affiliation with Catholicism who would find the film interesting. It seems it had a much broader appeal. The intrigues and machinations reminded me of ‘The Name of the Rose’, at a smaller scale. The acting was superb, but the characters mainly depicted nationalistic stereotypes. Nevertheless, the film took me on a pleasant cinematic ride. It had one of the best plot twists I never saw coming at the end.

After the movie, I thought about why Julia Cameron advocates the Artist’s date. Yes, there’s the usual ‘you need to fill your cup’ first type answer, but I sensed that there was more. I thought about the experience of walking into the foyer, smelling the popcorn, watching people mingling at the bar, wondering whether I should get a glass of wine (I didn’t), then walking into the dark cavern of the cinema itself. I had to find the row, the seat number, wonder whether people were going to sit next to me. Then when more people arrived, I had to practise equanimity as the talked and talked right through the ads. I hoped they’d stop once the film started, and they did. Then the feeling of watching a film on a big screen, the clarity and immediacy of it. Finally, leaving the theatre and listening to snippets of people’s conversations about the film. The experience brought me into the world and out of my head where I had been stuck for days. A writer has to experience things and Julia Cameron invites us to do just that. Or as Hemingway put it ever so eloquently – ‘In order to write about life first you must live it.’

Ringing Bells and Deepening Breaths: A Practice in Presence

Breathing, such a simple act. An involuntary function of the body that stays with us from the moment we come into this world to the moment we leave it. So why is it so hard to for us to master?

Like many people I know, my breath is shallow unless I pay attention to it. When I consciously think about it, my breathing slows and moves to my belly. At the same time, my shoulders drop, and I feel calmer after just two or three rounds. I am not meditating, just paying attention while I go about my daily tasks. Yet I don’t remember to do this simple exercise often enough.

Today I heard Jonathan Fields talk about the importance of breathwork. He starts his mornings with taking some inbreaths and then exhaling just a little longer. As he repeats this, the breaths naturally get longer, and the exhalation is also lengthened. This has the effect of calming his mind and starting the day feeling at ease. I think this is a worthwhile routine to incorporate into my morning.

The scientific reason why this works is that stress puts the sympathetic nervous system in charge, which activates the ‘fight or flight’ response. On the other hand, when we breathe deeply, we engage the parasympathetic nervous system which slows the heart rate and makes us feel relaxed. As our breath is always available to us, we can use it to help us regulate emotions.

I was reminded of something I always do when I hear bells ring. I stop and breathe consciously until I can’t hear them anymore. In Eastern meditation practices, the bell is always a reminder to return to the breath. This practice was easy to incorporate into my daily life in Europe where church bells often chime on the quarter hour. When I was teaching in a small town in Switzerland, the bells were always there to help me come back to my breath during the day. It made me present to that moment with my students. I miss hearing them in Australia.

So today, I set a gentle sounding timer for each hour of the day, reminding myself to consciously breathe, drop my shoulders and to move my body. I spend too much time in front of my computer and am unaware of the tension I hold. Now, I have an external reminder to bring me back to the physicality of my body and my breath. As Thich Nhat Hanh said ever so simply, ‘breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile.’

A High-End Wrap for a Low-Key Lunch

Packing a simple cheese sandwich should have been the easiest part of my day. At the Airbnb where I was staying, I had all the ingredients in a small bar fridge. Once assembled, I looked everywhere for a scrap of paper or cling wrap for my sandwich. Apart from toilet paper, there was nothing even vaguely suitable. While potentially amusing, I couldn’t face the toilet paper option. It reminded me too much of Barry Humphries eating a tin of pea soup out of an airsick bag on a flight to London. Funny but deeply disturbing.

I decided to opt for a more pedestrian alternative. While out for dinner, I went into a Lebanese corner shop which had a good selection of essentials. I walked down the aisle which sold every variety of dried pulses known to humankind and kept my eye out for cling wrap, foil or sandwich bags. I reached the back of the shop and was about to turn back empty handed, when I noticed both cling wrap and aluminium foil on the bottom shelf. Success! All I had to do was choose between them.

As I leant down, I noticed a much smaller packet of aluminium foil than the one I usually bought. I only wanted to wrap a sandwich, so I thought it’d be more economical to buy the smaller one. I was aghast when the cashier charged me $10. Highway robbery I thought, but dutifully paid the amount.

Back at the Airbnb, I made my sandwich for the next day. Opening the Aluminium foil, I was surprised to find it had perforated lines at regular intervals for easy separation. These were roughly the size of toilet paper squares. Perhaps, I should have stuck with my original choice of wrapping, I thought. It certainly would have been much cheaper. Then, I noticed small pin-pricked holes in concentric circles on each of the sheets. Moreover, the foil was quite thick, much thicker than the stuff I had at home. Clearly not meant for a sanga wrapper!

Suspicious, I began to Google the mysterious foil. Nothing on the box gave a clue as to its intended use. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Finally, it occurred to me to take a photo to see if Google lens could assist. And there it was:

‘Discover the ultimate hookah experience with the AHG Premium Shisha Foil Roll.’

I was about to wrap my sandwich in premium shisha foil!

Four sheets were ample for the job. Best of all, I could reuse the foil again and again. The stuff proved indestructible. Yet now that I’m back home, I find the cheaper foil much easier to use. And, as an added bonus, I don’t have to explain myself in the lunchroom the next day.

When a snip becomes a road trip

Every six weeks, I get my hair cut. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about that. Hair grows and if you like it short, it needs to be cut regularly. Nor is it unusual for women to travel across town to visit their hairdresser. Once you have established a good relationship, it is difficult to start over with someone else. It’s a bit like an old relationship where you are comfortable bearing all to each other.

I probably take this further than most. Visiting my hairdresser involves a ritual of driving 270km each way and staying overnight with friends in Millthorpe where I used to live. That’s the equivalent of driving from Milan to Venice or further than Vienna to Budapest. In Europe this would be insane, in Australia just slightly bonkers. We readily acknowledge that we have a different relationship to distances. In my misspent youth, I dated guys who used six packs (beer) as their preferred unit of measure between cities. (Not condoned!) That was before drink driving was taken seriously. I have a tendency to measure distances by increments of towns. Canberra to Millthorpe is three hours; one hour to Boorowa, one hour to Cowra and then one hour to Millthorpe. It’s a rough estimate, but it works for me.

My hairdresser is good but there’s probably 50 equally good ones within a 10km radius from where I live. She knows me well by now and doesn’t bother with social niceties. If we talk, there’s a point to it. She’s a no-nonsense woman who has no need to pretend to be anything else. I like her. But that’s not the only reason I make the trip.

Over the seven years I lived in Millthorpe, I have made some good friends and rekindled some old friendships from a different part of my life. Funny how that works out. When I moved to Canberra, I left some very good friends behind, and it seems a shame to keep losing friends as we age. So, I decided not to let that happen. My hairdresser appointment is a good excuse to visit friends regularly. For I know when we say, ‘let’s keep in touch,’ it rarely eventuates. Our lives become busy, other priorities take over and before we know it, we have lost contact. Getting my haircut is my way of ensuring that I keep up with friends. I now need to come up with a similar strategy to see my friends in Sydney!

How far do you go to keep up friendships?

Twixtmas

I have always been fascinated by liminal spaces: doorways, verges, airport terminals and the inbetween times in our lives. The time between Christmas and New Year, six days of waiting for the old year to pass and the new year to start, sees us standing at the threshold of the old and the new, in limbo, neither here nor there quite yet.

My new diary for the year is pristine, bar a couple of appointments. It is empty, yet full of promise for what is to come. 365 days of dreams and hopes await, yet I have little control over what will actually happen. Which of us will make it to this very day next year? Who will join us in our midst? What will be the joys, the sorrows, the moments we will remember? How will we show up for them?

The other day, I looked through the photos on my phone, starting at January 1, 2024. I made two pages of notes of all the important events I had captured. They were overwhelmingly positive this year, but then we rarely capture our sorrows unless they are marked with a ritual. I am sure there were plenty of mediocre days there, but I chose to focus on the things that uplift me. I will remember this in the coming year and focus on the positives. I’ll leave the downside of life to news reporters.

Twixtmas is a good time to take stock and reflect. I want to get into the habit of doing this much more often. We all know that our notion of time is a mental construct, that time keeps going on without stopping on December 31 and starting again on January 1. But it is useful to draw a line somewhere and give ourselves a chance to begin anew. While I am not a believer in new year’s resolutions, I do set a guiding principle for the year. 2025 will be the year of Imperfect Action.

Imperfect Action calls for movement towards something before I am ready, before I have all the information, before I can talk myself out of it. It is a way to get out of my head (and out of my way) to attempt new things without expectations. It is a belief that if I act, the outcome will look after itself. It is a realisation that I can only control my actions, not what the result will be.

When we recognise our task is to lean into action rather than expect outcomes, we can live with increased equanimity. Life becomes less of a grind and infinitely more fulfilling. We can take each step with intention and let the outcome take care of itself. Trust your effort will lead you exactly to where you need to be. Happy Twixtmas!

Boxing Day: Box it up!

You don’t have to be a minimalist to want to declutter your life after Christmas. We, who are lucky enough to live in wealthy countries, have more than our fair share of possessions and after a while, the sheer volume of it makes us feel stifled. Never more so than after Christmas, when even more things come into our homes, not all of it is welcome.

Generally, I try to give presents that are consumables like special items of food or at least useful around the house. I do make an exception with a friend with whom I exchange ridiculous gifts, but even these are practical. I don’t get hung up on whether things I give get re-gifted; if I got it wrong, let someone else enjoy it! Nor do I mind giving money if I know it is the best gift for the person.

I find it difficult to fathom that people would want to go out and spend more money on Boxing Day sales, unless, of course, there is something very special that they have been waiting for. For me, Boxing Day is a good day to begin the purge and box up all the things I no longer need. I go through my wardrobe and ask myself honestly whether I have worn that item in the past year, whether it still fits me and whether I still like it. If the answer is no to any of these questions, it gets folded and put into a box. I also go through my linen cupboard, shoes, kitchen utensils, herbs and spices, and food items at the back of the cupboard. The only thing that escapes my scrutiny is books. We all have our weaknesses.

While I am by no means a loyal follower of Marie Kondo, there is some truth in what she has to say. Although, she too has changed her tune somewhat since she has had children. She is less rigid and acknowledges the inevitable clutter that comes with raising kids. If you have children, you will need to be much more flexible with your approach to clutter. Still, you can go through clothes that no longer fit and toys that no longer hold their interest. Box it up!

Those of us who don’t have young children in our care need to think about the things we have accumulated and whether they will help or hinder us when transitioning into the next stage of our lives. Moving from a house to a small townhouse at the beginning of the year has certainly taught me about which things spark joy and which things spark nothing but trip hazards. There is only so much that fits into that container, which we refer to as our home.

I am not advocating Swedish Death Cleaning either. As far as I’m concerned, if someone benefits from receiving my inheritance, let them clean up after me. No, I am advocating doing some decluttering for ourselves. We will be the beneficiaries of a place where we can easily find things and where we can walk to the bathroom at night without encountering an obstacle course of our own making.

Let Christmas Day be about giving and receiving. Enjoy the presents, the food, and your loved ones. Then, when Boxing Day comes, and you look at the mess that’s left behind, take out the boxes and begin sorting. Come the New Year, you will be so thankful you did.

Lighthouse reflections

Some things are seriously worth waiting for. Like the Artist residency at Nobby’s beach, Newcastle. I was counting down the months, then the weeks until it was finally upon me. Five glorious days to spend on my memoir that has been sitting on a shelf for the past year, patiently waiting for me to come back and give my undivided attention.

There were eleven of us at the lighthouse. Some writers, some artists. Several had returned for the second time and were delighted to meet up with old friends. Two of us came from Canberra and, to my surprise, there was a large Melbourne contingent. One younger woman had grown up at the lighthouse as her father was the last signals operator before that job too became automated. We loved hearing stories about the people who lived there and the history of each of the rooms where we worked. For her, it was a chance to paint the lighthouse and its surrounds which had played such a significant part in her early life.

There is something magical about lighthouses. They are often metaphors for safe passage, guidance, and protection. They offer illumination for the dark nights of the soul and are a beacon of hope. In a port city like Newcastle, this lighthouse has the important function of guiding vessels into the harbour and up the Hunter River.

Before I arrived, the lighthouse became the beacon guiding me to cross the finish line of the year with a sense of achievement. It didn’t disappoint. I found it easy to get into flow and felt focused for hours on end. Many of us met at 12.30 for lunch in the common room, enjoyed each other’s company, and went back with a fresh burst of energy for the afternoon session. By the end of the week, I cut 21 000 words from my manuscript. I consider it a boon for my future readers. The engagement with the work has also rekindled my enthusiasm for the project.

The knowledge that Nobby’s lighthouse is one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the country made it feel like a workplace rather than some anachronistic holiday destination. I felt connected to both its current significance and its historical legacy.

Back in 1854, it first guided commercial shipping and 88 years later, it became important for military operations during WWII. The three small cottages erected on the site and these were used by defence staff during the war. An unexploded shell fired from a Japanese submarine damaged one of them.

Various lighthouse staff occupied the cottages after the war until the late 1990s. Lighthouse Arts, which is an initiative of the Hunter Writers’ Centre, now uses these cottages to hold exhibitions and offer artists and writers a space to create.

The area where the lighthouse is located is now known as Nobbys-Whibayganba headland. So finally, there is recognition of the Traditional Custodians, the Awabakal people and their deep cultural connection to the land, saltwater and the Dreaming.

I am grateful I could nurture my calling on this spiritually laden Country. It gave me much needed clarity and purpose. As such, I am already planning my next sojourn.

If you feel you would benefit from having a week to commit to your creative project, apply at https://hunterwriterscentre.org/2024/11/28/lighthouse-arts-residencies/  

We may even meet each other there.

When a Stranger Calls Your Name

Photograph by John Harding originally posted on Friends of Watson Greenspace Facebook page

It takes about a year for me to feel that I have arrived in a new place. I have moved cities often enough to recognise this pattern. Sometimes waiting for that moment feels like an eternity, as it did when I first moved to Sydney while other times, it feels as if it has taken no time at all. Canberra falls in the latter category.

While I have felt at home in my new place very quickly, I didn’t know anyone besides my daughter and her friends when I moved. Then, a couple of months later I met my first friend at the dog park. She lives on the same street as I do, and we meet up for drinks or dinner every now and again.

I am known at the local shop but not by name. People are more likely to say hello to my dog Zoë who wears her name on her harness than they are to say hello to me. Of course this is very common. Even Markus Zusak says that when he is out without his dogs, he becomes invisible to people on the street.

Can you imagine my surprise when a man with a camera hanging from his neck called out to me, ‘Are you Viktoria?’ It turned out, he was the local wildlife photographer who posts the most stunning photos of birds, dogs and kangaroos that visit the nature reserve across the road from me. I have been liking his posts for months and occasionally writing a comment, especially when he posts shots of tawny frogmouths. He must have looked at my name and found a picture of me. Now, he kindly showed me the tree where they were roosting, and I saw the three babies with their parents with my own eyes. It was a truly awe-inspiring sight, and I was grateful that he shared his knowledge of birds freely.

I thanked him and continued on my way. Zoë was getting impatient for her walk. However, after about 200m we were stopped again. This time, an older woman called out, ‘excuse me but do you have a friend in Sydney who lives in Dulwich Hill?’ Once more, I was flummoxed. Turns out she had moved to Watson recently, was given my number, but hadn’t made the call as yet. She recognised me because of Zoë. I guess there aren’t many black standard poodles who walk in this park. We had a chat and decided to catch up for a cuppa later in the month.

Ten months have gone by since I first moved here. So many joyful things have happened, but it wasn’t until I was recognised by strangers that I felt I had truly set down roots. It feels like I am part of the suburb and part of this community. I feel calm in the familiarity of the trees, the pond and the paths that I take daily. But hearing my name said out loud carried a particular weight, as though the world had suddenly recognised me within it. It was a fleeting moment of quiet significance, a moment when I felt connected to the place and the person who has called me into being out of my own thoughts and into the time and space we both inhabited.

And so, I have finally arrived.

Bee stings and childhood things

stock.adobe.com

My childhood memories of bumblebees are vivid. They were big, bright and booming creatures I encountered in meadows, underfoot and once in the backseat of a car. An early encounter with a bumblebee set the scene for melissophobia (fear of bees) that plagued me for decades.

I remember the occasion clearly. In the back seat of my uncle’s car, the window was wound down to let in some fresh air. A bumblebee flew in and was buzzing loudly at the back window, trapped. The bee looked so pretty with its striped and furry body, and I was fascinated. My mother’s voice boomed from the front seat.

‘Don’t touch!’

This was enough to make me want to do just that. I was a contrary child who could never follow orders, especially not those given by my parents.  So, I did exactly the opposite to what I was told. I reached out to touch the bee and was stung on my hand. I wailed in pain and tears flowed freely. I probably received a few  ‘I told you sos,’ and nothing could console me. I grew weary of these gentle giants that fly awkwardly from flower-to-flower pollinating as they go. I also developed a fear of all insects in flight

Bumblebees are considered a pest in Australia, and I have only ever encountered them in Tasmania. Like so many imported species, they compete with native species and they also compete with honeybees. An interesting fact about bumblebees is that they do not produce honey. Due to their size, they can damage flowers which makes them unusable for other pollinators that come along. 

I have only overcome my fear of bees in the last few years after learning more about their importance to the ecosystem. Somehow, understanding their vital role in our own survival has changed my attitude towards these creatures and my fear has subsided. I treat bees with respect and keep my distance, but I am no longer afraid. I appreciate all that they do and now watch in awe as they engage in their complex ritual dances to let other bees know where the best nectar can be found.

Our choice in a broken world

The world keeps spinning. So does my head. I’m finding it hard to make sense of what has happened in the US this past week. Everything I have ever believed in; fairness, equity, social justice, minority rights, honesty, kindness – all the things I have fought for my whole life, have been brutally dismembered and thrown on a scrapheap.

Where does it leave us when the very rule of law, commitment to international law enshrined in conventions, treaties and standards is eroded and the rich and powerful can make self-serving decisions indiscriminately? There will be no impartiality of the judiciary, no checks and balances, no recourse. We are entering a dog-eat-dog era where people are pitted against each other, where you are either with me or against me. Either or. No nuance.

This is not a world I can believe in. Nor is it a world I want to live in. So, I will keep taking a stand for decency, compassion and tolerance. And I continue to find solace in Anne Lamott’s words that “Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”
Amen to that!